(Bloomberg) -- Paulo Passoni, a former SoftBank Group Corp. executive, joined venture capital firm Valor Capital Group LLC as a managing partner.

Passoni will manage Valor’s growth equity business, which focuses on young or small companies whose earnings are expected to increase at above-average rates compared to their industry or the overall market, Scott Sobel, founding partner and chief executive officer of Valor, said in an interview. He will lead the search for new investment opportunities while working with company founders to support the expansion of the firm’s portfolio companies. 

“After a long period of hibernation, the appetite for growth investment is back in the private markets,” Passoni, who is based in New York, said in an interview. The current situation is different from 2021, because “there is more demand for capital than the amount of capital being offered, and the power is in investors’ hands.”

The “defrosting” of growth investments is also going to help companies consolidate to gain scale and reduce costs, Passoni said. About eight firms from Valor’s portfolio are in talks for a merger or acquisition, according to Sobel.

Passoni served as a managing investment partner at SoftBank from April 2019 to April 2022, helping to invest and oversee $8 billion in Latin American funds. He was expected to join former SoftBank executives Marcelo Claure and Shu Nyatta at their new fund, Bicycle Capital, which was launched in June 14. He declined to comment on Bicycle.

Prior to SoftBank, Passoni was a managing director responsible for emerging markets investments at Third Point Management LP and helped to build the Latin America special-situations investing team at Eton Park Capital Management LP. He began his career advising in mergers and acquisitions at Morgan Stanley.

“Paulo has been a long-term friend of the firm — we’ve known him for about 15 years — and is on the board of many companies we invested in,” Sobel said. “He’s coming to work closely with us at a moment when the market is at a inflection point.” 

Valor Capital also said it’s promoting Carlos Costa to partner to drive the venture and fintech investing business. Valor has 36 professionals based in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, New York City and Silicon Valley.

Founded about 12 years ago, Valor is focused on the US and Latin American technology markets. It has investments in numerous companies, including Bitso, a Mexican cryptocurrency exchange platform; Coinbase Global Inc., a US crypto exchange; Loft, a Brazilian real estate company; Sami, a health-insurance company; and Brazilian payment-services provider StoneCo Ltd. It has $1.5 billion in assets under management.  

“There is also a massive explosion of opportunities for investors and entrepreneurs coming from artificial intelligence, which is reshuffling technology platforms,” Passoni said.

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